Cursor Head of Design Reviews Startup Websites

**Aaron Epstein** (0:00)
Today, I'm excited to welcome Ryo Lu. He's the head of design at Cursor, the leading AI coding tool used by more than a million people worldwide. Before that, he was a founding designer at Notion, and a product designer at Stripe and Asana. Today, we're going to review a bunch of user-submitted websites, all built in Cursor, and Ryo is not going to hold back. We got the purple gradients, they're here.

**Ryo Lu** (0:25)
That's scary. What is this? What is that? Oh wow, this chart, sad. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. It's like distracting. Oh yeah, it is very jargon-y. Let's kill all of this.

**Aaron Epstein** (0:37)
Welcome to another episode of Design Review. Ryo, welcome to Design Review.

**Ryo Lu** (0:49)
Thank you.

**Aaron Epstein** (0:49)
Yeah, thanks so much for joining. These are all user-submitted websites from YC founders in the YC community, and they were all at least fully or partially built with Cursor.

**Ryo Lu** (0:59)
Nice.

**Aaron Epstein** (1:00)
So let's take a look. First one we've got is Crunched.

**Ryo Lu** (1:03)
Logo looks like a replica.

**Aaron Epstein** (1:05)
It does, yeah. Okay, so AI reimagined for Excel, yet started enterprise.

**Ryo Lu** (1:11)
Why is there like a New York City thingy?

**Aaron Epstein** (1:13)
I don't know, I guess there's a lot of finance people in New York.

**Ryo Lu** (1:15)
I see, I see. Oh, maybe that's why I set the scene for the finance people.

**Aaron Epstein** (1:20)
Oh, some buttons jumped out.

**Ryo Lu** (1:21)
Oh, maybe you should do that after these things go over.

**Aaron Epstein** (1:24)
Yeah.

**Ryo Lu** (1:25)
Yeah. Too early for that.

**Aaron Epstein** (1:27)
Too early. It got my attention, though.

**Ryo Lu** (1:29)
It does, but not in the right time.

**Aaron Epstein** (1:32)
Yes, but it is interesting, like that's a good use case for motion, is it can steal your attention and it can be either distracting or it can be helpful.

**Ryo Lu** (1:41)
Yeah, not sure what I'm getting from the hero at all.

**Aaron Epstein** (1:45)
Yeah. And there's tiny text here that says Excel Native AI Analyst.

**Ryo Lu** (1:52)
Not sure what it means.

**Aaron Epstein** (1:53)
Okay. Used by professionals at.

**Ryo Lu** (1:56)
Okay.

**Aaron Epstein** (1:57)
Recognize BCG, there was a Harvard there, NCAD. Okay, so it's like consulting and universities.

**Ryo Lu** (2:05)
Did you notice that when you hover, the logos are not showing the right highlight? And then when it goes to 100%, it snaps.
Like the right way to do it is like you're like slotting more things up. Right, right.

**Aaron Epstein** (2:20)
It should just be a continuous stream, right? Okay, so they're trying to build some credibility around who uses it.

**Ryo Lu** (2:26)
Does your work? What's the work?

**Aaron Epstein** (2:28)
Transform your workflow with autonomous Excel.

**Ryo Lu** (2:31)
What does it mean? What is the workflow? What is this?

**Aaron Epstein** (2:34)
I guess something financial analysts do. This is moving too fast. I can't tell what's happening here. Okay, it can build anything, DCFs, discounted cash flows, market models and more.

**Ryo Lu** (2:47)
Wow, I didn't know what DCF means.

**Aaron Epstein** (2:51)
Well, these are things where they're probably speaking to their user, and here you see it again, build a full DCF. So their users will probably understand, but we are not their target. There's tabs here that just because we happen to be here, I notice them. Otherwise, I don't think I would have even.

**Ryo Lu** (3:06)
Yeah, I have not noticed them at all.

**Aaron Epstein** (3:08)
Yeah. Okay, let's see. They had a question that they sent in. So they said, looking for input on overall quality of messaging and core sections should appeal to high-end investment banks, investors and consultants. And the site was built using Cursor and vibe-coded by the non-tech parts of the team.

**Ryo Lu** (3:22)
Interesting. Maybe that's why the hovers didn't work.

**Aaron Epstein** (3:25)
Ah.

**Ryo Lu** (3:27)
So messaging wise, I'm just not getting the message.

**Aaron Epstein** (3:31)
And maybe that's just because we're not the target.

**Ryo Lu** (3:33)
They should talk to the target more, and not less like in this vague high-level.

**Aaron Epstein** (3:39)
Yeah. I mean, a common pattern is like a sub-headline under here that, you know, sometimes people have like a cute kind of marketing headline. But then if you do that, you should have like a literal sub-headline that explains exactly what the thing is.

**Ryo Lu** (3:52)
And you should talk to the people you want to talk to.

**Aaron Epstein** (3:55)
Yes. Otherwise, like, I don't know, it seems professional enough.